ENEM impacts on Brazil's education inequality: an analysis of how the exam influences the education of low-income, nonwhite, and public school students | Sofia Torres Ferreira Signorini

Abstract

Introduction

While some kids wake up at 5 am and use public transportation to go to low-quality public schools, others wake up thirty minutes before class and go to the best private schools by car. This is a reality in Brazil, which ranks the fourth most unequal country among 122 (Cavalcanti, Guimaraes, & Sampaio, 2010). In 1998, aiming to evaluate primary and secondary education, attempting to identify its issues, and reduce inequality, ENEM - the National Exam for High Schoolers (Exame Nacional do Ensino Médio) - was created and implemented.

Despite not being directly related to the evaluation of higher education, the exam has a significant impact on this level of education because it has always been used as an application process for admission in most universities in Brazil - especially the bests public universities in the country - completely replacing, in many cases, other exams or pieces of information. (Lima et al, 2019). It became officially the national process of joining higher education in 2008, when the Ministry of Education (Ministério da Educação - MEC) and the National Institute of Studies and Research Anísio Teixeira (Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Anísio Teixeira - Inep) determined it (Governo Federal - Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Anísio Teixeira (Inep), 2020). Although the main use of the exam changed, the goals remained the same, at least in theory.

After more than 20 years of the exam, how has the implementation of ENEM affected Brazilian education? This paper argues that while ENEM is an exam aiming to evaluate the quality of primary and secondary education in Brazil and make the process of joining a Brazilian university more accessible, higher education access for low-income, nonwhite and public school students decreased after it was implemented.

This study will first summarize educational inequality in Brazil, focusing on high school and higher education and how functional illiteracy - a lack of critical skills in which people are not able to read complex texts or communicate their thoughts through writing - affects it, followed by a deeper look at ENEM. Furthermore, the study will analyze how race and socioeconomic status affect your performance on ENEM, and the differences between being a public and a private high school student taking the exam.

Literature Review

To understand more about the Brazilian Education System, it is necessary to explore how education inequality started in the country, as well as some factors that influence it, and take a deeper look at the biggest and most taken exam in Brazil - ENEM.

Education Inequality in Brazil

When analyzing Brazilian education from a historical and social point of view, students are faced with unequal conditions of education and access to quality education (Melo et al, 2021). According to Oliveira & Sampaio (2016), access to quality education is a right of all citizens but this is not necessarily true in practice in Brazil. The main three reasons are the lack of access to school, the exclusion in the educational system, and the access to different education quality levels.

This education inequality has been present since the colonization of Brazil. Investigating social inequality since Brazil was "discovered" in 1500 is necessary in order to comprehend the process of elitism in universities nowadays (Trevisol, & Nierotka, 2019), as well as education inequality itself. During slavery in Brazil, black people did not have access to any education, their only way of learning was through life and work. Even for white people, as Trevisol & Nierotka (2019) affirm: school was the secondary way of learning. Quality education was not a priority and only white men used to have access to education.

Nowadays, as a reflection of the past, education inequality persists. Until 1980, the problem was the lack of access to education for everyone (Oliveira & Sampaio, 2016). However, with a larger number of people having access to school, the quality of education decreased. This happens not only because of the larger demand but also because young people from privileged classes inherit knowledge, tastes and cultural dispositions that fit the demands of institutionalized education (Caprara, 2020) while nonprivileged students are at a disadvantage because social origin has a profound effect on schooling (Salata, 2020).

Caprara (2020) states that school benefits the privileged since similar methods, ways of evaluation and pedagogies are applied to different people coming from different places. School does not take into consideration cultural, social and economic disparities among students. While school keeps this mindset, inequality persists harder.

The studies analyzed above provide an understanding of the historical background of education inequality in Brazil and why race and socioeconomic status influence a citizen’s educational journey in Brazil.

Functional Illiteracy

Functional illiteracy is a result of education inequality and also something that potentializes it. A person is considered functionally illiterate when they are unable to read and use reading, writing, and arithmetic for the development of their community and themselves (Matos, Matos, & Alves, 2021). It is similar to a lack of critical skills. The person is able to read and write but they can’t understand long texts, solve complex mathematic exercises, write an academic essay well or use their communication skills effectively while writing.

After 2015, research on illiteracy in Brazil - by Paulo Montenegro Institute (Instituto Paulo Montenegro) through the Indicator of Functional Literacy (Indicador de Alfabetismo Funcional - Inaf), that indicates the illiteracy level of people between 15 to 64 years old (Winck, 2019) - was organized in five different levels: illiterate (analfabeto), rudimentary (rudimentar), elementary (elementar), intermediary (intermediário), and fluent (proficiente).

Functional illiterates correspond to the two first categories (Inaf, 2018):

-        Illiterate (analfabeto): someone who cannot read or write simple sentences and words (Matos, Matos, & Alves, 2021).

-        Rudimentary (rudimentar): someone who can identify explicit information in simple texts, can solve simple math problems, know punctuation and its uses, and write simple sentences (Matos, Matos, & Alves, 2021).

Around 13% of high school students are considered functional illiterates in Brazil (Inaf, 2018), which is equal to 1.2 million people (IBGE, 2018), a surprising number. That happens because, after several years of schooling, these students are not able to apply what they learned. (Matos, Matos, & Alves, 2021). A lot of times, this happens because the school does not teach them how to apply it.

A Deeper Look at ENEM

ENEM is the National High School Exam and, after 2008, officially the national process of joining higher education (Governo Federal - Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Anísio Teixeira (Inep), 2020). Before ENEM started to be used as the main way of joining higher education, universities had different traditional exams for ingressing - called vestibular (Junior, 2021). These exams had different structures and analyzed your skills in multiple areas of knowledge. The implementation of ENEM made access to joining a university easier since now it is not necessary to take one exam for each university or one exam by state.

Until 2008, the exam had 63 objective questions and an essay (Inep, 2005). However, in 2009, the exam experienced a change in its structure and now it has 180 objective questions divided into four areas of knowledge (social science and humanities, natural sciences, linguistics, and mathematics), and an essay, in which students must present a dissertation-argumentative text based on a proposed subject (Inep, 2009). Since 2020, students can choose to take the exam online or paper-based, both applied in a test center (Inep, 2020)

According to Junior (2021), ENEM was inspired by two standardized tests: the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) - a North American exam - and the Baccalaureate - a French exam. Melo et al (2021) also compare ENEM to Gaokao - a Chinese exam. All of these tests have the same goal of evaluating education in their country by producing quantitative data to be analyzed.

ENEM is the second most taken standardized test, by the number of subscribed students, in the world since 2015, (Junior, 2021), and like many other standardized exams, the interference of several factors, including race and class, in students' performance is evident (Melo et al, 2021). One example of this influence is on the SAT exam - a North American standardized test - in which the effects of family income on students’ performance are nearly twice as large for Black students (Dixon-Román, E. J., Everson, H. T., & Mcardle, J. J., 2013). Unfortunately, factors such as race and class influence the performance of students in any standardized test and the ENEM exam is not an exception.

In summary, ENEM is an extremely important exam for high school students in Brazil and it has been trying to analyze Brazilian education and its inequality for more than twenty years. However, nowadays it is just seen as the “application process” for joining a good university and the government does not take actions for improving education based on its results.

Therefore, my paper will study ENEM in order to assess the exam's impact on educational inequality in Brazil, especially when talking about nonwhite and low-income students, the difference between public and private high school performance on the exam, and how functional illiteracy affects the exam results.

Methodology

In order to find sources on existing literature to examine Brazilian education inequality through ENEM, Google Scholar and Scielo - two academic databases - were used. Sources in both English and Portuguese were found using keywords that include, but are not limited to “ENEM”, “entrance exam”, “Brazil”, and “education inequality”. Since ENEM - Brazil’s university entrance exam - started being applied in 1998, sources are from 2010 to the present so there is data from more than 10 years to be analyzed. The majority of them are from the last five years.

This paper supports my thesis and discusses my research question using qualitative analysis of secondary sources and data from the National Institute of Studies and Educational Research Anísio Teixeira (Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira - INEP) - which is responsible for ENEM. I also used data from articles that analyze ENEM results from previous years - mainly from 2018 - to support my arguments.

Research Findings and Analysis

Race and socioeconomic status influence ENEM performance

Analyzing ENEM results, we can see that the higher a person’s socioeconomic status, the higher their score on the exam. Caprara (2018) analyzed data from the Primary and Secondary School System of Evaluation (Sistema de Avaliação da Educação Básica - Saeb), created by the Ministry of Education (Ministério da Educação - MEC) through the National Institute of Studies and Research Anísio Teixeira (Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Anísio Teixeira - Inep). Caprara (2018) says that social class is almost always related to student performance in mathematics and Portuguese (Linguistics session in ENEM). Living in a large residence, having the habit of reading and having parents with a high level of education are conditions that influence the students’ school proficiency as well (Caprara, 2018).

Besides, Melo et al (2021), after analyzing ENEM 2018 results, states that cities with the highest percentage of families with high income have more outstanding performance, while those with a greater proportion of poverty have lower performance.

Families in higher class positions have the best conditions for social ascension or, at least, the permanence of their children's class position (Caprara, 2017) and “the more educated the student’s parents are, the more likely the student is to score higher in the ENEM exam.” (Valente, 2017, p.11). Families with a higher income can pay for better education and, as they usually have a high education level too, they can help their children in the learning process (Caprara, 2017).

There are also other factors, such as needing to work during teenagehood or having to take care of younger siblings, if coming from a lower class, that directly impacts education. Managing high school, extracurricular activities, mental and physical health, working for 6 hours a day, and taking care of siblings is not easy and make focusing on education more difficult.

Moreover, race is another factor that directly impacts your performance in the exam, due to historical aspects and its connection with socioeconomic status. Nonwhite students are “25% less likely to score in a higher category of the ENEM exam compared to white students” (Valente, 2017, p. 7).

According to Melo et al (2021) analysis, cities with the highest percentage of white students tend to have the best performers. Cities of the North or Northeast of Brazil - regions that have more poverty and nonwhite citizens in Brazil - tend to perform lower in the exam than cities of the South or Southeast - regions with a higher percentage of white people (Melo et al, 2021).

Jaloto & Primi (2021) also analyzed ENEM 2018 results. The authors affirm that being white increases your score, as well as socioeconomic status positively affects your performance. These two factors - race and class - are completely connected. In Brazil, your race influences your socioeconomic status directly because of the historical context of racial exclusion, in which nonwhite people - principally, but not only, indigenous and blacks - tend to have lower incomes. This explains the better performance of white students compared to other racial groups (Melo et al, 2021).

Private vs. Public high school students' performance in ENEM

Private high school students tend to perform better on the exam because of their preparation, background and environment of study. According to Cavalcanti, Guimaraes, & Sampaio (2010), the problem is not always the lack of cognitive skills in public school students, but actually, they lack specific preparation that is needed to perform well on the ENEM exam. Also, public school students are usually from lower classes and their parents have a lower educational level, which influences how well they perform on the exam as well (Cavalcanti, Guimaraes, & Sampaio, 2010).

When ENEM was implemented, the government aimed to improve public education by identifying its problems through the results of an exam applied in the whole country. The exam analyzed annually the learning process of students, assisting the Ministry of Education (Ministério da Educação - MEC) in creating new structures and public politics for improving public education in Brazil (Inep, 2020). However, after ENEM was designed as a standardized test for joining a university and private school students start to take this exam, everything changed.

Private schools started to focus on preparing their students for the exam with practice tests, extra classes, and didactical material, such as academic books, focusing on ENEM during Brazilian high school (grades 10 to 12) and even during middle school. Learning wasn’t the main focus of these schools anymore. Everything is created to “train” their students for this exam. This competition between schools increased after ENEM started to publicize their rank by school and city (Junior, 2021).

After analyzing the results of ENEM 2018, Jaloto, & Primi (2021) discovered that 28% of the performance variance in the social science and humanities part of ENEM can be attributed to differences between schools (private and public). In the linguistics part, the number increases to 32%; in the mathematics part, 35%, and in the natural sciences part, 37% - the most unequal. This influence the public school students' representation in competitive majors, which nowadays is almost null. In medicine majors, only 6% of the students are from public schools. The percentage is 7 for law and 5 for electrical engineering in universities in Brazil (Cavalcanti, Guimaraes, & Sampaio, 2010).

For those with a lower socioeconomic status - public school students - it is not only hard to obtain higher education, but they are also most likely to receive a low-quality education in primary and secondary school. 81% of students in primary and secondary school - equivalent to 38.7 million people - study in public schools (Alves, Frantz, & Schmeider, 2020).

As a well-structured and healthy environment is essential for better results in the teaching-learning process and studying and working in an environment in poor conditions can negatively interfere with the productivity of the professionals and the motivation of students (Winck, 2019), functional illiteracy is a problem that is most expected to happen with public school students due to the poor conditions of their schools. 58% of public schools in Brazil don’t have a library and in some states, such as Acre, Pará, Roraima, and Rio Grande do Sul, nearly 20% of the schools don’t even have potable water (Alves, Frantz, & Schmeider, 2020). Inequalities between education systems also result in inequalities related to the infrastructure of public schools (Alves, Frantz, & Schmeider, 2020).

Another aspect related to functional illiteracy is that the contents of the didactics books need a reflection with pedagogical actions for being more effective (Winck, 2019). It is not possible to teach reading and writing skills in a good and effective way by only using the books given by the government and no other sources. It is important to teach using different ways of learning through games and activities - keeping the interest of the children.

In Brazil, according to the Indicator of Functional Literacy (Indicador de Alfabetismo Funcional - Inaf), 29% of the population between 15 and 64 years old are not functionally literates - 8% of them are not literates at all, being in the illiterate (analfabeto) level of Inaf. The main factor related to functional illiteracy and illiteracy, in general, is that the higher your level and quality of education, the higher your literacy degree (Winck, 2019), connecting again with the fact that public students are most likely to become functional illiterates since the quality of education is lower, and the structure of the schools aren’t satisfactory at all.

Being functional illiterate impacts your performance on ENEM since the exam has many difficult texts, complex mathematic problems and an argumentative essay. If the students are not capable of understanding and interpreting them - what constantly happens with public school students - it is impossible to perform as well as a student that has a higher literacy degree and practiced for the exam for years - the private school students.

Conclusion

This paper argued that the implementation of the ENEM exam made university access for low-income, nonwhite and public school students more difficult, even though - at the beginning - the goal of the test was to evaluate primary and secondary education, finding its issues and trying to improve it. This happens because students from private schools have better sources for preparing to take the exam and a better ambiance for studying, with quality structures, teachers and material for learning. Also, low-income people tend to have more responsibilities outside the school, while mid-upper class people usually do not have to worry about it, having more time to study and focus on the exam, and nonwhite people - who tend to be from a lower class due to the historical context of racial exclusion (Melo et al, 2021) - are influenced and perform lower on the exam as well.

Overall, this paper indicates the failure of the Ministry of Education (Ministério da Educação - MEC) and the National Institute of Studies and Research Anísio Teixeira (Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Anísio Teixeira - Inep) on improving public education through analyzing ENEM results and creating actions to upgrade the quality of education in Brazil. Some years after ENEM was implemented, this main goal was not the focus anymore, as it became the principal and most taken standardized test in the country.

In order to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Goal 4 - quality education - we must provide actions that will help to develop and improve public education. The Brazilian  government should take the results of the exam into consideration when creating educational acts and the exam should focus again on analyzing the quality of primary and secondary education. Besides, it is necessary to improve the learning environment and the structure of public schools.

Some limitations of this paper include a lack of sources on Functional Illiteracy since it is considered a new topic of research. The limitation increase when specifying and connecting functional illiteracy with standardized exams or higher education in Brazil. However, while this field grows, more research and studies can cover this topic.

By understanding how low-income and nonwhite student’s education is affected by the ENEM as well as how these effects can potentialize inequality in education and also in socioeconomic situations, more actions can be taken by non-profits organizations and by the Ministry of Education (Ministério da Educação - MEC) to improve schools in Brazil. Education is the base of any society and I hope that this right of all citizens can be respected and given, with high quality, to everyone in my country - Brazil - and all countries soon.

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